DECLARATION Musical to Make World Premiere at Hermitage Museum
Lynn Manuell directs a six-person cast including Ben Archer and Amanda Nummy at the New Jersey museum.
Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary Declaration, a new musical based on the Declaration of Independence will be presented by the First Flight Theatre Company at the Hermitage Museum in Northern New Jersey. This whimsical, family friendly 45 minute production brings the Declaration of Independence to life through a playful “play within a musical” format. Every word of the original text is spoken onstage as the show explores why the document was written, who signed it, and what its legacy means today. Declaration is a play within a play which brings history to life. It is an intriguing musical that sometimes has the actors speaking while playing Musical Chairs, London Bridge is Falling Down and Tug-O-War.
Declaration's Director is Lynn Manuell, Musical Director is Lisa Plasse. Choreographer is Amanda Nummy. The cast of six actors include Ben Archer, Jordyn Grier-Parham, Amanda Nummy, Shayla Quesada, Micaela Ramirez, and Rosario Rodrigues.
Frank Farrell (Adaptor & Artistic Director of the First Flight Theatre Company) in August 2025 directed Little Jewel at the Theatre for the New City in NYC. In 2024 he co-produced and directed Walt Kelly's Songs of the Pogo as part of the New York City Fringe Festival, He produced Hamlet on the Run at the Tank Theater and co-produced and directed Tongs and Bones Shakespeare at the Theater for the New City, he directed Little Women, Poe: An Evening of Mystery and the Macabre and Dickens Presents A Christmas Carol for the Hermitage in New Jersey. In 2023 Frank produced and directed Shakespeare's Ladies at Tea and Shakespeare's Deaths as part of the Little Shakespeare Festival in NYC. He was an actor in Chicago for 40 years receiving four Joseph Jefferson acting nominations and returned to NYC and New Jersey in 2016. While in Chicago he directed and produced plays for the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Temporary Theatre, Shakespeare's Herd, Steppenwolf Theater, Raven Theatre, Equity Library Theater Chicago, the North Lakeside Players, Citadel Theater, and Theatre-Hikes. Frank has formed eight theater companies including the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company (Chicago's first year-round Shakespeare Theatre Company), Theatre-Hikes, the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company in Grand Haven, Michigan and in 2019 the First Flight Theatre Company. For FFTC he directed and produced 2022's production of Maxwell Anderson's play Valley Forge. Frank has re-published six plays by Anderson from the 1920s: What Price Glory, First Flight, The Buccaneer, Outside Looking In, Gods of the Lightning and Sea-Wife all.
LynnManuell (Director, Adaptor) began her career in Park Forest Illinois at The Illinois Theatre Center. She was featured as Mama in High Button Shoes, Hedy La Rue in How to Succeed and Celia in As You Like It as well as many other productions. She trained at Steppenwolf Theatre, The Illinois Theatre Center, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and in London with Cleo Laine's Wavendon Allmusic Program. Lynn has appeared in theatre and cabaret in Chicago, London and New York and in over a hundred shows. She was in Andrew Lloyd Webber Unplugged, Remember Me from Holy Redeemer High. Don't Cry Out Loud, She was on the board and a director and actress for FACT Theatre where she was featured in If The Pink Pump Fits (Martha) UFF'DA (Pink Hat Lady, A Red Umbrella in the Snow (Miss Lovely) Hansel and Gretel Christmas (Betty) and Treasure among others. She appeared in Ron Pallilo's The Lost Boy, and was featured in My DADDY IS THE BIGGEST STAGE MOTHER IN TEXAS as Aunt Faye. She has worked with Julia Genoveva Productions as Mother in The Twelve Chairs, Elaine in Elaine, Kitty in The Lost Virginity Tour, Lorraine in Cafeticto or Dreams and numerous short play readings. She has worked with Quarentine Players as Ruth in Blythe Spirit, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, Hannah in Arcadia and others. She has worked with First Flight Productions in several plays by Maxwell Anderson and as The Witch in The Scarecrow and Marme in Little Women at The Hermitage. She runs a theatre arts program at PS 811@149 and is on the board of TOUCHING HUMANITY, an organization that provides theatre classes for special needs students.
BENJAMIN MASTERTON (Composer, Adaptor) has composed and arranged music for dozens of productions in Chicago, Florida, New York, and of course, Idaho. With Frank Farrell Productions, Ben has composed music and designed sound in New Jersey for A Christmas Carol: The Musical, Night of the Living Dead, and musicalized an evening of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Frank and Ben also produced the Songs of the Pogo franchise, including the Songs of the Pogo Podcast, the film, and the theatrical stage show in New York City. Ben is currently composing music for the short film “Callahan's Hour”. Ben has written over a hundred and ninety songs and currently resides in Gainesville, Florida.
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